Glantz: A year to seek answers on JFK

Let the countdown begin.This past Thursday — Thanksgiving Day to you and just another day, Nov. 22, to the calendar — marked the 49th anniversary of the greatest lingering murder mystery in American history: The 1963 assassination of then-president John F. Kennedy.

Next year, 2013, it will be the 50-year anniversary.

Dallas, down in seccession-minded Texas, the hostile environment where the assassination took place, has already announced plans to have a ceremony, complete with tolling of bells and other forms of nonsense — readings from speeches — that don’t get to the heart of the matter.

They say they want to commemorate his life, not dwell on the his death.

Sorry, you don’t get to make that choice.

JFK did not live in Dallas, he only died there.

Additionally, his birth date was May 29, 1917, thus making the whole life celebration angle that much more disingenuous.

If we want to make next Nov. 22 a celebration of his life, we are going to need to be less reflective and instead be detectives in the coming year.

As is the case with Sept. 11, 2001 — the day 3,000-plus Americans were killed by terrorists on our soil — the stories about where you were really don’t matter anymore.

Where are you now?If you are half the American you say you are, you will use this year to join together and unlock the truth.

The government, the same government many of you think is all up in your business too much, thinks it can use your tax dollars to keep vital documents pertaining to the assassination nestled to its bosom.

It is curious at best.They must have something to hide — if not a conspiracy, then gross negligence by the CIA and FBI, before and after the assassination.

The official story is that Lee Harvey Oswald was Kennedy’s killer.

The theory was signed, sealed and delivered by the report of the Warren Commission.

Thousands of books, some more credible than others, have been written that basically turn the Warren Report into fodder for lining a bird cage.

At its best, the Warren Report keeps its eyes on the prize, disregarding ancillary evidence, to prove Oswald acted alone.

At its worst, it is a cover-up worth the ongoing time and effort to scrutinize what was left in and left out of its final version.

I personally believe that it is a propaganda tool, bordering on a fairy tale, designed to quell the populace from thinking for itself.

Blaming it on a lone nut absolves a lot of people, except the lone nut.

Polls show that most Americans, although maybe not with the same verve as I, feel the same way.

JFK’s widow, Jackie, and his brother, Robert, were not in lockstep with the Warren Report.

And yet, with less than 12 months to go until we get pomp and circumstance, the official version is unchanged.

Why?Well, we the people don’t help. We can’t hang it all on the ghosts of Big Brother — past, present and future.

There are segments of our population who simply don’t care. They have either heard and read their fill, drawing the lazy-brained conclusion that what’s done is done and nothing can change it, or they just don’t have any interest and would rather talk about “Jersey Shore.”

They find validation in either one book or television show trying to prove Oswald acted alone, or in the flip side of being convinced he didn’t because they caught parts of the movie “JFK” on cable (Tom Hanks apparently has a movie in the works to coincide, i.e. cash in, on the 50th anniversary).

But there are still those, like myself, who buy enough into the theory that what’s past is prologue, meaning you can only make feeble attempts to out-run this one. It won’t go away until enough of us — at least 47 percent — stop and confront it.

Kennedy was killed two years before I was born. In 1973, on the 10th anniversary of the assassination, my interest in it was kindled when I saw a movie, sort of a pre-”JFK” flick, called “Executive Action.” I was 8, so the Flyers and Elton John were still more important, but I read about it through the years and did a paper in college (it got a B, largely because the professor wasn’t into conspiracy theories).

By the time Oliver Stone’s “JFK” came out in 1991, I went into the theater with a bucket of popcorn and plenty of foreknowledge. While I was entertained by the quality of the filmmaking, and encouraged to see the Warren Report successfully debunked, Stone drew too many odd conclusions on his own to move the script along.

And we have since learned that Stone is really out there, so we have to consider the source.

We shouldn’t go into Year 50 of this national tragedy — and it was, whether you liked Kennedy or not — believing either Earl Warren or Oliver Stone.

Or me and mine.I have given time to all the theories — the mob, the military-industrial complex, pro-Castro Cubans, anti-Castro Cubans, rogue members of the intelligence community, the KGB, LBJ, the far right, the far left, the Mossad, Oswald with a little help from his friends and Oswald all alone — and can poke holes in all.

I have theories of my own, like anyone else well-versed on this, and have changed my mind several times over the years.

But, really, what do I know?I have more questions than anything.

And there is no time like the present to start getting the answers.

Let the countdown begin.Gordon Glantz is the managing editor of The Times Herald. Contact him at gglantz@timesherald.com or at 610-272-2500, ext. 212. Follow him on Twitter @Managing2Edit.